WEST PALM BEACH – Rather than view the COVID epidemic as a career interrupter, comic Marshall Brandon chose to interpret it as a rebirth.
“I knew there was a reset going on,” Brandon said. “Since there was a reset, I said every comedian can start at this same line. That means I can pretty much place myself where I want to be at.”
A stand-up comic for nearly a quarter century, Marshall managed to spend some the pandemic talking with and learning from some of the best in the business.
Donnell Rawlings, who came to fame as Ashy Larry on Chappelle’s Show, and Brandon have been touring together off-and-on for nearly a decade. Brandon’s friendship with Rawlings led to an invite to Dave Chappelle’s Summer Camp in Ohio.
“You can kind of call it a school,” Brandon said. “We weren’t performing. We were going to watch the show.”
A stand-up comic since the late 1980 years, Chapelle’s “Chappelle Show” is one of the most highly regarded sketch comedy shows of all time.
While at the camp, Brandon talked shop with fellow comics and enjoyed outdoor performances by top musical acts. When not performing, Brandon said they group partook in all kinds of summer camp-like activities – including kickball games.
“It was like a camp for adults,” Brandon said. “It was awesome, man. It was the greatest experience of my life – especially comedy wise.”
Brandon’s biggest takeaway from his time spent with Chappelle?
“Your head and your heart have to be in the right place at all times,” Brandon said. “Whenever it’s not, it will show.”
Brandon’s experience, confidence and storytelling were on display on March 6 when he featured for Donnell Rawlings at the Palm Beach Improv. Several bits had the audience rolling, most notably his closer about when it will finally be acceptable for some lighter-skinned humans to use a certain vulgar, racist word. Hint: it involves the arrival of aliens.
While Brandon still emphasizes his stand-up comedy his head and heart have an additional focus of late. Brandon’s working on a movie project that he thinks could be revolutionary.
“I’m at the point in my career where comedy is going great, but I really need to create something to really get my name out there,” Brandon said. “Coming up in comedy, you think it is about doing a show and getting discovered and this and that, but it’s really about getting to a point and creating the rest of your way to whatever you want to be.”
Brandon’s belief in the project is so strong that he’s guarded about the details. He doesn’t want someone trying to steal the idea.
“I can’t really go too deep into it because of what the actual concept is, but it’s a concept that has never, ever been done before in filming history,” Brandon said.
It takes a little coaxing to get Brandon to reveal a little more.
For starters, the working title is “The Adventures of Brown Dragon.” And while it sounds like many movies rolled into one, the format could lend itself to many different broadcast mediums.
“I put cliff hangers in every 15 minutes,” Brandon said. “If I want to make it in episodes I can. It’s definitely a film. It’s a movie, but it doesn’t have to be. It could be six 15-minute episodes. It can be a series, which I’m kind of leaning more towards, because there is so much more story. This story is great, but there’s so many stories.”
Brandon is writing the story and would like to act in the production, but that’s left to be decided.
“I’m married to the project to the point that it needs to be made,” Brandon said. “I’d love to play my character because I created it. That’s why I created it – for myself. But I don’t know. It depends how much money we’re talking about.”
And then, there are those aforementioned aliens.
“You get close to meeting them at the end,” Brandon said with a smile.
